In current construction practice, foundations for buildings are commonly formed by digging a foundation hole, assembling forms within the hole to effectively form a mold, pouring concrete within the assembled forms, and then removing the forms when the concrete has set into a solid form. The foundation is then left standing in the foundation hole, which is backfilled around the exterior of the foundation. The remainder of the building is then constructed atop the poured foundation. As a result of this process, construction of a building is highly dependent on the proper completion of its foundation. This can lead to difficulties in areas wherein soil conditions delay or hinder the digging of the foundation hole, and wherein the climate is not agreeable to pouring of concrete owing to rain or freezing. Rain causes significant difficulties insofar as concrete mixing trucks must generally be driven on-site in order to pour the concrete within the forms, and muddy sites can make this effectively impossible; the heavy trucks can get stuck in the mud, preventing them from reaching the pouring location. Freezing causes difficulties because it interferes with the setting/curing of concrete, and it can effectively ruin freshly poured concrete.
Further difficulties with properly forming a foundation are inherent in the pouring process. Because foundation walls must be poured within vertically-oriented forms/molds, the concrete mix must be in a substantially fluid state if it is to readily flow within the forms to fill out all corners, prevent voids, etc. However, in order for the concrete mix to reach this degree of fluidity (i.e., a low "slump" value), a substantial amount of water must be used in the concrete mix. This results in weaker, lower-density concrete, with greater permeability to water after setting occurs. Further, a watery concrete mix results in longer concrete setting/curing times. This slows building construction because backfilling against a newly-poured foundation before it is fully set may cause the foundation walls to collapse, or may crack them to later allow water to enter the foundation.